If there’s one thing we can learn from our politicians, it’s that you should always be on your best behavior because someone is always watching – especially now since most people carry cell phones that capable of taking still pictures and many can even capture high definition video. To spin that around and look on the bright side, that also means that you have a lot more opportunities than you often realize.

I figured this would be a great topic to kick off Super Bowl week. I once heard about a company that had multiple openings for similar positions and brought all of their candidates in for a day of interviewing at the same time. They had games and activities that the candidates worked on together – one such activity was creating a new cheer for the company. What was interesting is that some of the candidates figured that coming up with the best cheer, or at a least a cheer better than everyone else’s, would land them the job. Turns out it didn’t.

Interviews where all of the candidates are brought in together can be tricky – more so than even the dreaded “team interview”. On one hand, you at least know who you’re up against for the opening. But on the other, the way you present yourself and act around the other candidates says more about you than you realize. I once went on one such interview and found it to be weird. First, seven of us were all brought in to take a standardized test. It felt like I was taking the SATs all over again. A week later, we were all invited back to have lunch with the IT management team –all together. Read more...(530 words, 1 image, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Have you ever let an opportunity pass you by because the timing was never right? Is there something that you wish you could do but it just never seems like the right time? Hesitation is one of those things can either prevent us from making a decision that wasn’t well thought out or allow us to procrastinate our dreams away.

A while back, I read “How to Sell Anything to Anybody” by Joe Girard and one concept that stuck in my head was his point about throwing spaghetti at a wall. Joe says “if you throw enough spaghetti against a wall, some of it will stick.” He used this point to describe his philosophy on cold calling – if you call enough people, someone will eventually listen to you. The concept can be used in other areas of business such as sales, pitching ideas and even looking for a job – if you contact enough people, you’ll eventually find someone who is interested in what you have to offer. But wait, there’s more… Read more...(524 words, 2 images, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

For the past several years, we’ve all been subjected to the grim economic outlook that most media outlets are focused on. Even when a good report comes out, it’s often followed by more of the bad news thus neutralizing any positive effects. While it makes great news, it would be much better if instead of making it worse by constantly focusing on it, they instead reported on people who have learned to deal with it. Since they won’t do it, I guess we’ll just have to discuss how to stay focused on your goals while the rest of the world is screaming that the sky is falling. Read more...(587 words, 1 image, estimated 2:21 mins reading time)

Mashable, which is one of my favorite web sites, recently posted an article on the top 10 mobile apps for entrepreneurs. Surprisingly, I found their list to not be very helpful for two reasons. The first is that many were iPhone only, and I have an Android phone. But more importantly, I just saw their list of apps to have little value to me as an entrepreneur. The apps sounded cool, but few of them were what I would have considered a “must have” or even something that could benefit entrepreneurs in particular. Read more...(850 words, 1 image, estimated 3:24 mins reading time)

If you ever want to kill your mood or quickly go into depression, then spend your life seeking approval from others. When you look to others for a way to feel good, you’ll find yourself doing things to impress them in the hopes that they’ll complement you. At the same time, you’re handing the power to control your feelings over to them and taking it away from yourself.

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